Yesterday morning bright and early I began my second leg of this big adventure. I took a short flight from Paris to London where I met up with Kate from Destination ImagiNation Headquarters who I will be running a camp with this week at Lakenheath AFB. We took the National Express bus two and a half hours from Heathrow to Mildenhall. Since we both get terrible motion sickness we sat in the front seat where we had an exciting and terrifying view of driving on the left side of the road. It felt a little bit like the Star Tours ride at Disney Land- only it was in England... not outer space.
When we arrived in Mildenhall we walked about 100ft to The Bell Hotel which is the cutest little place I've ever seen. It felt a little bit like we were in a happy movie where there are literally 20 people total in the whole town and a quarter work at our hotel/pub and the rest are regulars to the pub. Nobody is stressed or in a hurry and everyone LOVES new faces. It's kind of like Christmas every time a new person checks in. We felt very welcomed!
The jaunt to our room however was not our favorite and definitely an adventure in itself.
First we had to climb the staircase which was narrower than our suitcases.
Then we had to walk down about six different hallways all on the same floor to get to our room. I noticed that on the first page in the hotel binder in our room was a note that couldn't stress enough the importance of familiarizing yourself with how to get to the lobby from your room in case of a fire. I think Kate and I both agreed that it would be safer to just jump out a window than try to find our way back through the maze of doors and hallways.
Naturally after we got all settled in, we realized we were both starving from our trip. We headed down to the pub which seemed to be the most popular place in town. When we inquired about getting some food the man looked both confused by our question and sorry that he let us down when he explained, "but it's not dinner time yet." Neither Kate or I realized that in England (or at least Mildenhall) many restaurants only serve food at certain times also known as "meal times." Luckily there was a little Italian restaurant right next door that didn't follow the norm and instead served food all day long. When we walked in there was only one person about our age working and again just like at the hotel, he was so excited to have some company that it almost made me sad. The first thing he said after he grabbed his notepad and came running over was, "Oh thank goodness, I've been bloody board out of my mind!" Every time he came to take our order or bring us drinks or check on us he would just stand there and smile at us real big like he was hoping we'd talk to him a little longer. So we had a jolly old time chatting it up with the waiter.
Since we were eating at such an abnormal time (3:00pm) we had the whole resaurant to ourselves!
Kate sitting in the very empty Italian restaurant with what I think was supposed to be peaceful music blasting in the background.
When we returned back to our room with full stomachs we were both so exhausted (me from not sleeping all week and Kate from her long flight from Philadelphia) that we put on a movie on Kate's laptop and both fell asleep.
This morning we worked our way through the maze of hallways from our room down to the lobby/pub of the hotel. We were again greeted with a peppy "Good morning!" The kind man instructed us that breakfast was right through the doors. An adorable old woman greeted us with "coffee or tea my dears?" We ordered , "tea please" and helped ourselves to some food. The precious lady brought us some tea in a tea set just like in the movies. Nobody brings you tea like this in the United States and if you order tea in the Tri-Cities be prepared to get Lipton in regular drinking glasses. But here in England I was taken right by to my childhood days where I was THE QUEEN of tea parties. Tea parties in Rachael's playhouse were kind of the "place to be" when I was little. So I poured Kate some tea and we had our own little tea party.
I was obviously just so excited about the tea that instead of scooping the sugar into my cup I poured it all over the table. Ooops...
I tried to hold the cup all proper like I practiced so many times when I was little but the cup was so hot that I had to use two hands... and I burned my tongue. I guess I forgot to wait for it to cool a little. Again... I was just so excited!
After breakfast we said fairwell to our friends in Mildenhall and took a taxi to our base.
Goodbye friends, it was lovely meeting you!
I'm not gonna lie, our taxi driver had mad multi-tasking skills. She talked on her radio, her phone, and to us all at the same time. Oh, and did I mention she was driving a stick?
Our POC was right there to meet us at the gate and take us around base. As soon as we got to the Youth Center and saw where we will be doing the camp, we were so glad we got to set up and plan today. The room is fit for about 10 kids and we are supposed to have close to 30 in the morning session. It took us about 3 hours to both rearrange the room, figure out how in the world we are going to have 30 kids building towers and doing relays, and make up our own challenge to fit one that just wouldn't work with our circumstances. We were also glad we had enough time to blow up all the beach balls without passing out since we didn't get an electric pump in our luggage this year.
Kate's a champ though. She blew up most of them by herself.
I am very excited to work with Kate this week. I can tell we will be a great team. It's going to be a fun week at Lakenheath!! 
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